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"Caroline has gone through more pain in four years than most people will go through in a lifetime," her father says. She spent 180 days in hospitals, missing birthday parties and kindergarten. She has been subjected to chemotherapy, countless injections and blood tests, and numerous bone marrow biopsies. This remarkable young girl has fought and won the battle against leukemia not once—but twice, and she is only six years old. Fortunately, Caroline is now living a normal life, but lurking in the background remains the question; how will those countless treatments affect her in the long run? That question is one Sederick Rice is trying to find the answer to.

"I'm trying to find a better way to treat kids with cancer. After all, they have the rest of their lives ahead of them."Rice, a published author and a 29-year-old doctoral candidate at the University of Vermont in Burlington, works in cancer research at the Finette Lab.

His research aims to help the 1 in 1,000 children who will be diagnosed with some form of leukemia by the time they are 19 years old. Leukemia, the most common form of cancer in children, attacks white cells in the bone marrow. From here, the cancer can spread to the blood, lymph nodes, and various other organs in the body.

According to Rice, the current medications only help children survive here and now, forgetting about potential dangers that could occur later on. Rice described today's cancer treatments as "nasty agents" that are designed to kill cells. Although this approach works, the question is; what dangers can these "nasty agents" cause twenty years down the road? Uncovering that answer will help doctors treat children with leukemia. Rice comments, "we have to use the current treatments because that is all we have, but what we need is the knowledge of their long term effects."

And that is what Rice's research is designed to figure out. His research could help doctors regulate the time and dosage that a patient is subjected to a certain treatment.

To find that answer Rice examines blood samples of leukemia patients. He monitors the defects by isolating children's lymphocytes, which he describes as "magic white blood cells that protect against infection." Although his research is still in the works, Rice says every time he works with a sample it hits him that "these samples are from a real person." And that is the reason he is in cancer research. "It is something real, and something I can see myself making a difference with."

Rice is making a difference, as he has noticed current treatments are harming children's immune system. To better understand how these treatments affect the immune system Rice put it this way: "Let's say we are talking about a million cells. A healthy teenager might have two cells that have a defect out of that million, but a child that has been treated for leukemia could have 300 defective cells." This makes it increasingly difficult for the child to ward off diseases because, "once those levels are that high, they can't come back down."

But unlike immune cells, Rice's plan for the future is anything but defective. After graduation Rice plans on continuing his work in cancer research, becoming as polished as he can, and eventually running his own lab. But his ambitions don't stop there, as he wants to train 100 students to become researchers. Rice says, people laugh at him when he tells them that. His motto is "there is no student that I can't teach. Students need to have the opportunity to make mistakes, and question authority, and in long run they learn from it, and hopefully I'll have made them a better student."

Rice spoke highly of Barry Finette, head of the lab, saying "he showed me the way, and I'll never forget that, and someday I want to give that back to students." Finette agrees, as he feels Rice "can accomplish anything he works hard for, and can see him as an educator and a role model for others."

"I always wanted to be a scientist, I always wanted to be smart," Rice said. But he also wants people to know there is "duality of the scientific mind." In other words, researchers love science, but they are people too. This idea shatters the stereotypical image of a researcher who spends their day and night cooped up in a lab hovering over test tubes filled with colorful chemicals that are foaming with steam.

Instead Rice proposes that researchers aren't totally consumed with their work, they have other interests, and for Rice it is music. He marched in bands, playing the tuba throughout his schooling, and has written a book titled Must Be The Music. His book discusses the impact that music had in history and in his life. Rice "lives for music and understands that it must be the music that has made it all possible and worthwhile."

With his research and his personality, Sederick Rice, is aiming to make a difference, not only in lives of children like Caroline, but in the lives of the students he plans on teaching. "Who knows," he chuckles, "maybe one of my students will win an award and thank me for my help."

 

Learning More: American Cancer Society National Cancer Institute Cancer Care